in the world that a pie, a couple three beautiful cakes, some quesadillas and a few lemon bars won't cure when made by Empress Ying! I have to admit sometimes, I don't know why, my apprentice screams PIE!!! .....at the top of her lungs as I bark very loudly at her to get her attention. It happens in the strangest places and would be embarrassing if we weren't retired and cared about anything in the least :-)

It all looks so delicious and beautiful, wish I could give you hand with the leftovers :)

I often have the same issue with pie crust edges losing a bit of shape during baking, my "try next time" list includes a thinner crust shape and hotter preheat (then turn down after fives minutes or so) in order to get the edge to set quickly in the oven, and leaving out the baking powder. Pie crust leaves that I bake on a metal sheet pan seem to hold their shape perfectly, even with the baking powder in the formula, which makes me think it's due to slower baking.

My crust recipe doesn't have baking powder in it, but playing with baking temp is a good idea I haven't thought of, thanks! BTW, instructor at the kneading conference did say it's always advised to bake pies in metal pan, leave the pretty non-metal ones for other dishes. I actually did use a metal pan for mine, then move the finished pie to the green pan for pictures.

Your husband is one lucky guy! Just fantastic looking baking. I've been meaning to try some homemade tortillas as my wife bought me a tortilla press last holiday season but I keep forgetting to try it.

Or just plain great holiday eating? Either way it all looks very tasty!

Happy Anniversary!

Homemade pie crust...one of the best parts of eating pie : ) Unfortunately, I have to make excuses to have a slice :)

I think your crust looks wonderful and formed lovely around the edges. Personally, I love pie with a little natural hand shape to the crust and not to fussed over, to me it just gives a good ol homemade delicious appeal and makes it look even tastier.

It helps with shaping pie crusts to have a little lard/crisco type fat added in with the butter chunks. You loose a little of that good ol butter flavor but, not enough for anyone to notice gobbling up the pie.

and depending on the pie, I bake custard pies at 450F for 10 minutes and then turn down the oven to 350F for 50 to 60 minutes depending on how done they are. Test with a cold table knife inserted into the custard center of the pie, no gunk on knife, cooked, gunk uncooked! Berry pies or two crust pies go into a 350F oven for at least 60 minutes, and I rarely bake a blind shell (just the shell for putting in lemon filling etc.) those I find are the hardest to get right!

I also use only lard or butter in the crust never vegetable shortening, it cooks differently and the pie crust never seems to hold shape properly. I have used nice china pie plates without problems, and glass ones too, you do have to watch for extra browning with the glass ones so you might lower temps a bit more the reccomended amount is 25 degrees lower, but I like my crusts well done so a little browner doesn't upset me.

If you haven't tried it yet, the vodka pie dough recipe from Cooks Illustrated is really outstanding in that it is both tender and flaky at the same time.

I am curious about how you get such a clean cut in a Torta Divina that is covered with nuts. I would expect the topping to be disturbed or the edge at least rough (unless you put the nuts on after you cut it but it doesn't look that way). I don't put nuts on until it is plated explicitly so that I can cut it with a wire and I don't think it would work with yours.

says to start the pie at 450F and bake 10 minutes and then turn down to 350F and finish baking for 50 minutes. I roll my crusts thin, and flute the edges with a twisting motion of my thumb and fore finger to firmly make the edge, and seal the top crust to the bottom if using. I only have problems with the crust turning to a sort of blurred facsimile of its self, when I use a store bought crust and its worse if I use one that is vegetable shortening base. I make tenderflake lard crusts and they work fine for me. Another trick is to put the rolled out crust for a blind baked or one crust pie, into the fridge after flouring it lightly, leaving it in the chill uncovered for at least half an hour, this takes out moisture and leaves the crust solider and they bake really nicely when doing a pre-baked crust for a custard pie. Although I rarely bake those as the cookbook says to just place the filling in the pie and bake with the 10/50 routine. Lemon and Banana and chocolate pies might be the only ones I would pre-bake a crust for. But the flouring and leaving in the fridge work just fine.

All original site content copyright 2015 The Fresh Loaf unless stated otherwise. Content posted by community members is their own. The Fresh Loaf is not responsible for community member content. If you see anything inappropriate on the site or have any questions, contact me at floydm at thefreshloaf dot com. This site is powered by Drupal and Mollom.